


Eye Candy

by ember_alda



Series: Realms of Influence [4]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Angst, Denial, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-29 00:42:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/313957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ember_alda/pseuds/ember_alda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They still keep him as Rain Guardian, even after they find out the blinding in his eye is permanent. He practices the sword, too, day by day, since Yamamoto supposed this was the only thing left he could dedicate his life to now that his other career was cut short before it could even begin. It’s a secret from his dad, because he knows that even more than the quiet, soft glances Tsuyoshi gives him now, if he found out about this, his father would take it away too.</p><p>Yamamoto doesn’t know if he could last with having everything ripped away at once.</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Eye Candy

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt: _Yamamoto never recovers from Squalo blinding his eye, and can no longer play baseball. With that injury his future as a guardian is unsure too._

 

It breaks his heart, but a month later, Tsuyoshi puts his son’s bat away. The boy just didn’t know when to quit, even after they’d already had him diagnosed. Everyday Yamamoto would come in late, panting with eyes glassy from fatigue and something his father didn’t want to quite admit, bruises all over his face and body. Baseball practice had turned into something else altogether over the course of four weeks, and it was only when Kouriki the manager had called the house from the batting cages that Tsuyoshi gently decided enough was enough.

Head down, back slouched low as he pressed the heel of his hand to a purple and green twisted eye-socket already covered with gauze, Yamamoto too, seemed like he knew it was over. The blood that poured from his temple and the wide, dazed set of his eyes as he smiled painfully at his dad said it all.

Quietly, laughingly, the baseball rolled from Yamamoto’s limp hand across the floor, into the fading darkness.

-0-

They still keep him as Rain Guardian, even after they find out the blinding in his eye is permanent. He practices the sword, too, day by day, since Yamamoto supposed this was the only thing left he could dedicate his life to now that his other career was cut short before it could even begin. It’s a secret from his dad, because he knows that even more than the quiet, soft glances Tsuyoshi gives him now, if he found out about _this_ , his father would take it away too.

Yamamoto doesn’t know if he could last with having everything ripped away at once.

The thing is, is that he could live without baseball. He’s done it before; when Tsuna had pulled him back from the Great Fall Yamamoto had decided that baseball was secondary to this person who somehow made such a thing like a broken arm seem petty. This time though, it wasn’t just the game he lost.

His swings are misdirected and wide to himself, so used to how easily he balanced his katana only a few weeks ago. Practice doesn’t come easily, not like how it used to flow out from his limbs instinctively before. His sight isn’t the only thing that’s crippling him, the doubt he feels at the centimeters off in his swing bite at him. That much difference means possibly a vein being cut or a tendon sliced, or _an ally’s_ tendons sliced. The way he maneuvers is off-center, and now it wouldn’t be a ball he would be trying to dodge. It’s when he trips on the flipped edge of the mat on the right side- his blind side- and _stabs his own leg_ , that Yamamoto says to himself he has to stop. He has to stop pretending.

Smilingly, he’d told Tsuna that he couldn’t be his guardian anymore, that he’d have to find someone new- he couldn’t function or protect him. The outburst comes immediately, though not from someone he would have expected.

Gokudera yells at him, hollers, actually, and Yamamoto gets this painful itch in his forehead as his brows tilt together and he laughs sheepishly. This surprising flood of support from his friend astounds him, as Gokudera rants that there’s no one else to be the rain guardian, that he knew it all along, Yamamoto couldn’t stick it out to be the Tenth’s right hand.

Tsuna only gives his rain guardian a small look, something in his friend’s plain, ordinary brown eyes hitting Yamamoto in the gut.

“You don’t have to stay, I never wanted anyone to be my guardian. I just wanted you to be my friends, and friends care about each other when they’re hurt. I don’t want you to die, I’d rather you leave and be alive.”

And oh, how it _hurts_. It hurts because this is exactly why he tried so _hard_ , and Yamamoto thinks Tsuna, for once, doesn’t understand him because giving up on this was going to be what injures him the most, where he doesn’t think it will heal. The tightening in his chest is a solid mass as he smiles the most desperate smile he ever makes, and sacrifices his soul.

-0-

Squalo comes to him through his window at the dead of night. Yamamoto is turned away from it but he can feel the breeze from the open screen and the ticklish strands of a few loose white hairs.

He gathers himself up and flops over in his bed, head pillowed gently as he gives a half-hearted grin at the ridiculous figure framed by the street light flickering outside.

“There is no other rain guardian.”

Yamamoto blinks, that is not what he was expecting from the other man. “Wha-”

“Bosses hand-pick their guardians, they’re theirs for _life_. The ring chose you, you _idiot_ , and whether you give it up or not there won’t _be_ another rain guardian until you’re _dead_.”

“I-”, The young boy swallows, “I…” he can’t babble for once, and Yamamoto trembles inside at the silence. He’s already failed once, and now he was in the way _again_. How many times must he find out what this stupid fucking eye has taken from him? Yamamoto’s afraid- he’s so afraid of the future. He can’t make it, how could he possibly make it?! Look at him, he’s acting like a child, panicking when he’s not even _blind_ and his swings are pathetic and it would be _nothing_ for Squalo to take him down now-

An unforgiving punch in his injured eye rips him out of his daze. Gapingly, Yamamoto looks upward to this not-quite demon, pain searing his head as his fingers are gripped to crushing before Squalo rakes him up under his arm and _jumps_ from the second story.

“Don’t waste the fucking ring, brat! I lost and handed it over to you just to see you become a fucking wreck? Either let someone kill you and _take_ it, or USE IT!”

Yamamoto stumbles against the ground, half his vision gone as well as it being pitch dark. Another hit comes hurling from out the darkness and Yamamoto barely sees it before dodging pathetically, the fist scraping just by his right cheekbone again. A kick scythes out and Yamamoto rolls over it clumsily, every move fast and his mind sluggish. He saw it though, the motion wider and the length of the limb broadening his scope of view. He doesn’t even think of the fist that crashes into his head from above, this blind spot coming from his inability to calculate, not from his inability to see.

Squalo continues to beat the living shit out of him in viciously clinical moves that Yamamoto, cornered in the middle of the street, desperately tries to avoid as he sharpens his instincts through agony and fear.

When morning comes he’s bloody and can’t move an inch, pains shoot all up his side and his legs are numb, but he no longer feels like failing. Blearily, Yamamoto opens his eyes to a blushing sky, unsure and half unconscious as he feels himself jolted and then thrown against something soft, the impact hurting like hell. Later he realizes that it’s his bed, that Squalo had _carried_ him there.

When he recovers two weeks later, he tells Tsuna that he’s sorry he’s failed him, sitting seiza in his friend’s room and bowing on top of the Tenth’s math homework. Tsuna stammers and says that all he wanted was for Yamamoto to be happy, and if staying was what did it he shouldn’t have listened to his advice in the first place.

-0-

Squalo was frustrated, he could tell. The training- more like beatings until recently- that he’d gotten were difficult. Yamamoto had to scrape and scrounge every minute of time he could to try and master his disability. Already so used to unobstructed sight from the time before the ring battles, he has to relearn how to stand, how to maneuver, how to minimalize where his opponent will go. He’d mastered every lesson thrown at him and for a while Yamamoto thought he could make it. He thought Squalo had thought he could make it.

It doesn’t take long for the lesson’s momentum to slow, though. He doesn’t get it in a week, or two weeks. It takes him longer and longer to work through each increasingly more difficult technique, and Squalo’s almost fond impatience warps and skews, occasionally erupting into full-fledged irritation and beatings.

The plateau doesn’t end for a month, the next time it doesn’t for two, then three. The mounting difficulty, the pressure Yamamoto feels in his limbs rising to just burst out of the restricting shell, almost crushes him.

Squalo hated training brats anyway and now he _loathes_ it. Sometimes, he can see a glimmer, an almost perfect follow through, a skillful dodge, things that tease his mind and for a second Squalo loses himself and derails. He edges his blade towards abandon, wanting to do nothing more than slash and rip and blast away at Yamamoto, who should have been able to avoid and counter his moves.

It kills them both that he’s left at half potential. Yamamoto knows that it will only be a matter of when he’s killed, not if. His skills cover just enough to keep his place, but not for very long. The minutest thing can kill in battles against one of their own kind, and Yamamoto is making all the minutest mistakes he could.

Throughout the years, the burning in his body doesn’t end, simmering just below skin and freezing his ability to relax.

-0-

It’s so stupid feeling so disappointed anyway, after knowing all this time that it was going to happen sooner or later. It dogs him a little, when he turns up from their private hospital swathed in gauze and crutches and slings to go see Tsuna. Some of the other guardians are gathered around, like Ryohei and Chrome, Hibari is off in his own corner, not paying attention. By now, they all already knew about his arm and its condition.

Ligaments severed, grown back and scarred fine, but won’t ever move the same again. He won’t be able to use his good sword arm again like he did before. Of course, taking on those missions Yamamoto knew that he would eventually face the inevitable. Their world had been getting more and more dangerous, people stronger and stronger had been popping out trying to hurt them and Yamamoto would have to come against an opponent that was better than his one-half effort.

Tsuna tells him, sadness in eyes that are trying to smile, that Yamamoto will always be the rain guardian until the day he dies.

He can only hold onto that fragile thread, hoping that it won’t ever break, one day.

 


	2. Eye Candy: Robots in Disguise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Squalo gets Spanner to “improve” Yamamoto like Squalo improved himself with his arm.

 

Squalo sneers at all the haphazard junk lying around. Wires and tubes form death traps curled for unsuspecting victims to trip upon. Discarded engines and broken up computers lay side by side, huge stacks of L.E.D’s and laptops and micron-whatevers are piled around unsorted.

Fuck. He was only a getting a tune-up, not anything else. Spanner didn’t need to build an obstacle course to block his way.

As if hearing that thought, the blonde’s goggle headed face pops into view _right there in front of him_. What the hell?! Was that stupid mechanic purposefully hiding behind that pile of old moscas the whole time, trying to give the sane people around him heart attacks?

A twist of Spanner’s mouth makes the tiny white stick in between his lips shift from one side to another while he hums lightly. “Here for your tune-up?”

“Why the hell else would I come to this dump?”

The robot freak isn’t put off by the scowl on Squalo’s face that’s cowed men much more skilled in fighting then Spanner himself. Instead, he motions to a grey bean bag chair flopped on the floor, methodically rubbing and dismantling the swordsman’s outstretched hand once Squalo deigns to sit on that monstrosity.

“It seems to be in fairly good condition~ You must be taking good care of it despite all the hits I see you’ve taken on it.”

The compliment does not deter Squalo from being rude. “I didn’t come here for a heart to heart craft talk, _Martha_. Just tune it up so I can _leave_ before I cut open the only idiot who can fix this thing.”

Despite what people thought, Spanner was quite observative. Often they took his nonchalance and obsessive nature for absent-mindedness, but the mechanic simply didn’t find it necessary to talk about those unimportant observances to anyone who could hear. If something was really bothering them though…

His patient’s eyes had been flicking around the room, looking anywhere but him for quite some time. It was unusual for Squalo to hold any irritation in check, so something must be up.

“You’re unaccountably nervous today, Squalo. I haven’t heard you say so much in a tune-up since that time you met Belphagor and he jammed a swiss army knife into the release catch.”

“Voiii! I’m not here for anything else. _Anything else_ , got that?!” The tenseness in the swordsman’s eyes doesn’t go away, anger not completely covering up the strange self-admonishing tone buried deep beneath his usual tirade. “Fix the fucking tin can and shut your stupid mouth.”

A small click sounds out as the mechanic opens up the inner cache, an oil dipped rag shining away any small specks of grime to give him a clear, uninterrupted view of the mechanical epitome of perfection spelled out for him in gears and hooks and wires. Simply sumptuous- there was really no precedent for this kind of work, the seamless integration of the hundreds of tiny hinge joints alone was worth admiring. His predecessor certainly had skills Spanner himself still didn’t posses, to dream up this without any help.

“You haven’t looked me in the face once since you came in to see me. I assume, then, that your problem somehow deals with me in some capacity.”

The well timed comments provoke Squalo out of his bored sprawl across the ridiculous bean bag chair- _who the fuck actually used these things_?!- and galvanized a loud, almost incomprehensible rejoinder.

“IT HAS _NOTHING_ TO DO WITH YOU, YOU SELF-ABSORBED FREAK! DIDN’T I JUST SAY I’M HERE FOR A FUCKING TUNE-UP WHY THE HELL ARE YOU HARPING ON THIS, DON’T YOU HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO THAN POKE YOUR UGLY GOGGLED HEAD INTO MY BUSINESS? GO GET A GIRLFRIEND OR A WHORE OR A MANNEQUIN!”

Spanner’s eyebrows rose to his curlicued hairline, all the while never looking up from the prosthetic arm positioned under a L.E.D. powered magnifier. It must be really important to Squalo to get him so worked up. So it wasn’t about him, hm? Then it must directly involve someone else, and Spanner himself was included of periphery importance.

“Did you want me to help you help someone?”

“NO I DON’T WANT TO _HELP_ ANYONE BECAUSE THAT FUCKING BRAT DOESN’T _NEED_ ANY HELP. HE DID IT TO HIMSELF SO HE SHOULD HAVE TO FUCKING DEAL WITH IT AND LIVE LIKE ALL THE OTHER NORMAL TRASH ON THE STREETS AND WALK AROUND WITH A PATHETIC DOG AND STICK.”

“Oh. Yamamoto’s blindness in his eye.” Suddenly, Spanner isn’t so indifferent. Not that Squalo could tell; first not knowing the American very well, second he was too angry at himself for saying anything when he promis- when he- _when coming here to fix his damn arm is all there was to do today_!

For once, Squalo keeps quiet. If he clamps his mouth shut there _is no issue_.

The lollipop shifts to his right cheek again, Spanner not even admiring the artistry of Squalo’s arm, uneasily distracted by his thoughts. He didn’t quite know what to say to the Varia Rain Guardian regarding this issue…he’d had enough of disappointing people in one lifetime.

“You know…” Spanner starts awkwardly to his deaf audience, “an eye is very different from an arm.”

A rustle of leather rubs out as Squalo shifts, back still to the mechanic, but Spanner can tell from the slight hunch of his spine he’s getting the gist of what he’s saying.

It takes the blonde a few starts to say something. “Ahum. Optical stimulation is very different from general nervous stimuli. It’s a really small spectrum to work with, at least in the wrists there are an abundance of nerves and the electrical impulses along the optical cores are so delicate that it would be hard to-”

“Stop babbling already.”

Spanner can’t stand to look directly into the shining force of the glare in Squalo’s eyes, so he simply drops his sight back down to the arm. The light from the magnifier blinds him a little as he works to tighten the outer springs, hands meticulously working through well versed motions.

“That stupid Tenth has those contacts and you made them-”

Angrily the words spill out as Spanner works vigorously on finishing up the arm as soon as possible. “Those were a simple program; I wasn’t replacing the very basis of its function. That would be like blowing out a motherboard of a computer and its surrounding chips then asking me to repair it-”

“- did it once, completely repaired my hand after Tyr blasted it away-”

“- already seen the _plans_ , it was just rebuilding and rewiring-”

“I DON’T GIVE A FUCK, OK?! WHO EVEN CARES ABOUT THE FUCKING KID.”

There’s a long pause as the American works subdued and silent.

“I’M JUST SAYING THAT EVERYTHING YOU TOLD ME SHOWS THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW TO DO IT BUT ARE TOO CHICKEN-SHIT TO TRY IT ON A HARDER LEVEL.”

Spanner blinked, the hand fully repaired clutched in his fingers as this new view was shouted at him. “…But you do know that replacing an eye is very different from a hand, right? I mean, a limb is one thing but you’d have to open up his brain in surgery to re-attach the nerves.”

Mute silence passes between them as Squalo ignores the other man, head turned away as the mechanic re-attaches his arm, screwing in the outside supports and tapping the wires in to stimulate the nervous connection again.

“I-I guess if we completely weed out the existing organ and replace the surrounding tissue with electrically sensitive metal plating there would be enough material to generate a stimulus in the brain to project images.”

Squalo continues to keep his mouth shut as he lets the other man babble on. Clearly nothing the swordsman could do would stop the robot freak from working it through, so he wasn’t going to waste his breath emphasizing- _yet again_ \- that he as only here for a tune-up and _nothing else_.

In subdued tones the mechanic adds an addendum, “It- it won’t look very human, the components are purely functionary and hard to alter cosmetically. It’ll be like a terminator eye.”

Spanner tries not to sound too elated with this new project. Despite the difficulty level and probably the numerous bugs that will have to be fixed afterwards, he was finally embarking on the start of a true robotic-human hybrid!

The tremble Squalo feels from Spanner’s hand on his wrist makes him want to punch the irritating bastard in the face. What the hell was there to be so excited about?

“Tch. Is my arm done you freak? I’m leaving.”

The following week Yamamoto wanders into his research room clueless, and Spanner doesn’t even have to ask to know that Squalo had somehow maneuvered him there.

 


	3. Epilogue

 

It was really amazing, Yamamoto had to stop himself from permanently having his finger in his eye the entire day, even after Gokudera slapped his hand off and told him to stop prodding the thing.

To himself, it seemed as if everything was in order, twenty twenty sharp, nothing unusual in the plain view of his sight. It’s only when he sees a shiny glass or a pool of water or when he lifts a pristine spoon that he’s startled. In place of his usually warm amber iris was a socket lined with a superconductive titanium alloy. The metal gleamed smooth, no tacky bolts or rivets, and at the dead center where the vision focused was the beaming white L.E.D light of his new eye. It seemed alien that something so supernatural was supplanted into a normal guy like him, but Yamamoto would have gladly replaced both eyes if that was what it took to make the other swordsman call him out again. It was a blessing that that was highly unnecessary.

He finally stops at the door, hand hesitating a little despite the open invitation he was given before knocking loud and sharp.

There’s no pause as suddenly he has to dodge the swinging knob as Squalo springs out into the hall. He takes one look up and down at Yamamoto’s easy pose, the way he’s holding his sword in his left hand, and the eye hidden beneath a tasteful black patch. Yamamoto flips it up to look at him, for the first time in a long time able to see Squalo whole.

“You have a lot of work to do to catch up. Don’t think I’m going to go easy on you just because you’re injured.”

“Haha, I don’t think you ever would.”

The warm smile that engulfs Yamamoto’s eyes embarrasses him. He didn’t know why the stupid brat was thanking him when he was going to take a beating, but for a small second, Squalo let’s himself be a little happy that Yamamoto can still feel so carefree.

 

THE END

 


End file.
